


bodily whole (but my head's in a mess)

by vodkaanddebauchery



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Angst, Blow Jobs, Body Image, Body Worship, Established Relationship, Gender Dysphoria, Gender Issues, M/M, Marriage, Marriage Proposal, Non-cisgendered Steve Rogers, Other, Rimming, Self-Esteem Issues, healing through sex I guess, post-recovery Bucky
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-09
Updated: 2014-07-09
Packaged: 2018-02-08 02:39:43
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,434
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1923624
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vodkaanddebauchery/pseuds/vodkaanddebauchery
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He pulls on the dress and smooths out the fabric, enjoying the way the skirt flares when he shifts and gives an experimental turn, the lovely medium blue tones of the pattern. He always felt he looked best in blue, whether he was being Bucky’s wife or Captain America.</p>
            </blockquote>





	bodily whole (but my head's in a mess)

**Author's Note:**

> Okay so this was going to start off as Steve Rogers wearing stockings in a kind of PWP-y way but then somehow I ended up really emotional and projecting onto poor Steve and it got serious and I hope it turns out okay in spite of that. u_u Steve is absolutely not cis in this fic, but regarding pronouns, I think he'd be okay with most people referring to him with male pronouns, and Bucky using female pronouns whenever they're at home.  
> Please note that this work may allude to mild internalized homophobia typical of the 40s. Please also not that this is unbeta'd and unrevised, so I apologize for, well, everything. 
> 
> Thank you, as always, for being great and reading/leaving kudos/commenting. I appreciate each and every one of you ♥

This has been a long process in the making - not just his preparations the weeks leading up to today, but to get to this point in their relationship again. When Bucky - thank God, Steve silently closes his eyes, grateful - when Bucky was recovered and restored that had been a long, long road to recovery. An even longer road until they could be comfortable touching each other like they used to. 

After they reached that point, it was like they just couldn’t _stop_ touching. 

But there’d been one thing missing, and Steve felt its absence as keenly as he’d felt Bucky’s. 

As soon as Bucky left that morning, Steve swung into action. He’d chosen today carefully, not because it was any momentous occasion or anniversary, but because Bucky would be gone for a few hours - and Bucky rarely left the house, except to go to the grocery store or to therapy, and Steve was damn sure he didn’t want to spring this on Bucky after he was fresh from a psych appointment. 

SHIELD had been begging Bucky for weeks to advise their new recruits with firearms alongside Clint and Bucky had finally given in, so Steve was certain he’d have a few hours in which to pamper himself today.

Pulling boxes and bags and bottles out from where he’d secreted them away in places that Bucky’d never check (bottom bathroom cabinet, Steve’s sock drawer, the box where he keeps his art supplies), Steve is struck with the feeling that this was nothing like how it had been before. He’s unsure if that’s a bad thing, entirely. 

It started as a joke in 1938, an autumn night just hinting at the chill to come. Bucky got home from work, wrapped his arms around Steve as he puttered around in the kitchen making dinner and said offhandedly, “You my wife, Steve?” 

And Steve had frozen in a way that neither of them could miss. The thought occurred to him frequently but he waved it off like it was an annoying mosquito. Because who did that? Joked about getting married to their male best friend, dreamed of one day reaching out and releasing the parts of him that always felt like a girl would, but the second Bucky held him and said that the floodgates opened and all he could think and say was, “Yeah - yes. I. Yes.” 

The next day the nice silver Bucky’s parents left him was conspicuous in its absence, and when Bucky came home that night there were two of the thinnest gold bands he could find at the pawn shop in his pocket. And just like that, Steve became a housewife and didn’t feel depraved or like a sinner or a queer because he loved it so much, loved Bucky, loved being his wife.

They only wore the rings in the apartment because anywhere else would raise questions. Steve was only Mrs. James Barnes in the apartment. He was short and skinny and stuck out like a sore thumb, the butt of a joke anywhere he went. In the apartment as a wife it was something he embraced, feeling the right kind of small and sheltered in Bucky’s arms. For the first time he felt in tune with his body, the secret little places in him which always felt feminine that he had ignored until then. 

And Bucky - God, Bucky told him the second he put the ring on his finger before dinner that he loved Steve no matter what, regardless if Steve was his husband or his wife. 

Now, Steve’s biggest regret is that the rings are gone, lost to time. But between the having the rings or having Bucky back, he knows which of those options he’d take. 

He runs a bath and lines up bottles and gels along the side, squeezing his large frame into the little tub when it’s full of warm water and honey-scented foam. The bathroom in their little shared apartment isn’t huge and far from the luxury Stark offered at the Tower, but it’s his and Bucky’s place and it makes them happy. 

It’s a little cramped but he soaks and relaxes. When the water’s cooled off he rubs shaving gel which foams up onto his legs and shaves with a safety razor all the way up to his thighs, running a hand down the skin when it’s smooth and free of hair. After a moment of consideration, he shaves his underarms for the first time in his life and flushes at the smoothness when he’s done. Then he treats his legs and feet to a sugar scrub that leaves him silky and smelling vaguely of coconut and vanilla when he’s dry and toweled off. 

Out of the bath, he takes his time sipping his coffee in his bathrobe, a luxury they’re rarely afforded on days when there’s so much to do, a world to save. He brushes his teeth, observing himself in the bathroom mirror, still warm and pink from his bath. As always, he’s silently grateful that his facial hair grows in slow enough that he won’t have to shave today. 

After that, he turns his attention to the myriad little boxes and packets he put on their bed. One by one their contents are unwrapped and organized into neat little stacks on the duvet cover. It’s only when the packaging and boxes are thrown away, or stacked with the recycling, does Steve allow himself to break into them.

It’s almost like Christmas.

In the past, just after it wasn’t a joke any more, he started out with just his thin gold ring, the string of glass pearls Sarah Rogers had worn to church and half a tube of cracked red lipstick left in the box of things from her old apartment, and a pair of Japonesque clip-on earrings that pinched the tender lobes of Steve’s ears. 

Then Bucky had talked Rebecca into buying nice stockings for them with pennies he’d pinched - and his sister had been canny and didn’t comment about the sort of dame that’d let her scoundrel of a brother buy underthings for her. The department store package came with a sample of wine-colored lipstick tucked between the wrapped underthings, and Steve left merlot kisses all over Bucky’s cheeks when Bucky brought home Steve’s favorites two weeks later - a slip, a housedress, a suspender belt that made his previously-awkward, spindly thighs look sweet and feminine. 

Now, he has vintage reproduction cosmetics - rouge for his cheeks in a shiny compact, lipsticks in colors like Red Velvet and Carmine, face powder, rose-scented cold cream for beneath his eyes. He has an atomizer for a perfume that smells of fruit and flowers and spice. He has clip-on earrings that don’t pinch, little freshwater pearls in sterling silver settings.

What he thinks is best of all is the helpfulness of the internet in supplying him with clothes that will fit his frame. He hasn’t felt this side of himself, let himself be Mrs. James Barnes since the week Bucky got his orders. The clothing and jewelry, the lipsticks were tenderly boxed up and slid beneath his bed. After the serum there weren’t any stocking manufacturers nor department stores selling things that could fit his new body; and there simply wasn’t the time or the place to let himself feel feminine like he wanted to.

Not until today. 

Today there are places on the internet that accept his measurements without a single question, save asking for his credit card information. He hadn’t purchased anything with the StarkBlack card that Tony gifted to every Avenger, instead dipping into his years of back pay to furnish himself up again. This was between himself and Bucky, and he didn’t want any credit card receipts potentially making their way back to Tony - or anyone else, for that matter. 

The set he wants to wear today is still all wrapped up in its slim white box, hidden in layers of delicate tissue paper within. His fingers shake when he opens it, and silently he chides himself, feeling excited and a little stupid for it. 

He takes his time dressing, enjoying the tactile sensations of satin and silk and mesh like he hasn’t been able to in so long. So often dressing is mindless - suiting up in the uniform, pulling it on like it’s his second skin, or else picking out whatever’s clean and appropriate for the weather from his wardrobe of pressed pants and button-ups. Steve Rogers doesn’t think too hard when he dresses. Mrs. James Barnes lets herself take a long time, and enjoys every second. 

The stockings are silky, beige, with the thick black seam and reinforced heel he’s missed. They slide up his soft calves and thighs and fit him like a glove, as do the lace-topped panties, the garter belt which he hooks to the stockings. He hooks himself into the lace brassiere, which is something he never got way back when, but he enjoys the sensation of the lace against the more sensitive skin of his chest and back. A cincher pulls his waist in minutely, but it’s less for adding curves and more for the effect of the support and restraint it gives. 

But this time....the feeling of the cloth is the same, but the fit is different. It doesn’t make him feel quite like he did before, but Steve’s willing to brush it off. It’s been a long time, after all.

Suited up in his underpinnings, he spritzes himself with perfume, glad he’s got this and not the old bottle of violet water that made Bucky choke way back when, pulling back from kissing him and half-coughing, half-laughing, “You smell like my maiden aunt, darlin’, let’s go out and we’ll get you something with a little more va-voom, okay?” 

He pulls on the dress and smooths out the fabric, enjoying the way the skirt flares when he shifts and gives an experimental turn, the lovely medium blue tones of the pattern. He always felt he looked best in blue, whether he was being Bucky’s wife or Captain America. 

Shoes had provided the largest challenge - it was apparently very hard to find feminine shoes in male sizes that weren’t intended for drag queens, not that there was anything wrong with that, he thought - but he’d been near his wits’ end until he found a pair of pumps with low-heels and a T-strap in buttery black patent leather that seemed to have been made just for him. He buckles them now, and it’s not like he needs to be any taller, but he enjoys the different sensation the lift of the heels provide

It takes a little bit longer to get back into the swing of applying makeup so he goes simple: Powder, a hint of rouge blended into his cheeks, the carmine lipstick. 

With familiar motion Steve applies the final swipe of lipstick, blots on a tissue, steps back to look at himself in the mirror, and tries very hard not to cry. 

He feels huge and ungainly, mannish and utterly inelegant. The depths of his femininity that he used to access so easily are gone, dried up, replaced by height and broad muscle.

Every moment of feeling out of touch with his body that he’s ever felt comes hurtling back, because he doesn’t feel like himself, doesn’t feel happy like he did in 1938 wearing glass pearls and a housedress that was slightly too big.  
Now - now _he’s_ too big, like he always wanted to be when he was little, but it’s too late now. Too late he’s found that the body and the strength Erskine and Howard Stark gave him came at the price of the portions of him that felt soft, lovely and strong in a different way, in a feminine way.

Steve’s shoulders are too big for a pretty dress now; his feet are now better suited to boots than these little kitten heel-pumps. His hands are big, his wrists no longer thin and delicate enough for bracelets. God help him, his face didn’t change all that much, but even his jaw seems too square now. He feels ashamed, and for the first time, wants to be his little self again. He feels vulgar. He doesn’t feel like a woman, not like he used to, he feels like an imposter. 

In the mirror, like he’s detached, he sees his face crumple and feels _ugly_ for the first time in forever. 

Which is exactly when he hears the key grate in the lock and the door opening. He straightens, wiping fingers beneath his eyes, offhandedly glad he hasn’t chosen to wear mascara today, otherwise Bucky would be coming home to an even uglier mess. 

“Smells good in here,” comes Bucky’s voice from the kitchen. A rustle of plastic bags. “You burning a candle or something? I stopped by the store but didn’t know if you wanted lun- Stevie? You in here?” 

“In here,” Steve calls from the bedroom, hearing his voice waver and feeling stupid for it. It’s too late and there’s no time to rip everything off and hide it or wipe his face clean, so he bites his lower lip to keep it from trembling and probably smears carmine all over his teeth in the process, but too bad. 

Bucky opens the bedroom door and stops dead. 

For several long seconds they just look at each other, Steve wanting to shrink under Bucky’s gaze, ashamed and like a stranger in his own body.

It’s Bucky who breaks the silence first. “Never thought I’d see my wife again.” 

Steve shakes his head violently, halting Bucky as he steps toward him. He can’t bear it, can’t stand to hear Bucky call him his wife again, not when he feels like this. “I - I can’t be your wife any more, I don’t think.” 

Bucky’s mouth drops open in confusion, and then there’s hurt in his eyes. But he pulls himself together, crosses his arms over his cobalt SHIELD instructor shirt and says, “Why’s that, darlin’?” 

Pressing his lips together, Steve steps away from the mirror, but no closer to Bucky. “I’m - different, now,” he says, trying to keep the cracks out of his voice. He finds himself blinking rapidly. “I’m big and I don’t feel like -”

“You’re still the same, Stevie,” Bucky says. He approaches Steve slowly, like someone would a wounded and flighty animal. “What don’t you feel like?” 

And his gentle tone is what breaks Steve completely, because suddenly there are tears running down his cheeks, smearing the rouge powder. “I don’t feel _pretty_ , any more, not like this, it’s so stupid, I don’t _feel_ like how I used to when -”

“Shh, shh, shh.” Closing the distance between them, Bucky cups Steve’s face between his hands, flesh and metal thumbs wiping tears away from his cheekbones. He steers Steve through his blur of tears down to their bed, pushing aside packages of clothing to make room for them. With the heels he’s much shorter than Steve, and that makes Steve yearn even harder for how he was before, for the sweet differences in their heights when he was little. 

“You’re gorgeous, honey, gorgeous, God, you’re a sight for sore eyes,” Bucky’s saying, swiping away a fresh tear with a metal fingertip. “You’re stubborn no matter what so you’re gonna think I’m full of it, but I’m gonna say it anyway: You’re the prettiest damn thing I’ve ever laid eyes on and I’ve never stopped thinking that, not for a second -”

“But I don’t feel -” Steve begins, and Bucky brushes a finger across his carmine lips. 

“You told me what Erskine said before he died,” he says soothingly. He lowers his hand to rest above the left lapel of Steve’s dress, tapping where his heartbeat emanates from. “It’s all in here.” He taps again for emphasis. "Nothin’s changed, you’re still who you were back then, and who you are is a good person, the best I know, man or woman.” He runs his hand down Steve’s arm to cradle his wrist carefully in his grip, brings his hand up so he can dust kisses across Steve’s fingers. 

Steve sniffs, wiping his eyes with the back of his other hand. Bucky catches it and kisses those other fingertips, too. “I haven’t felt - not for so long -” 

“It’ll come back to you,” Bucky soothes. Steve wants to scoff, wants to say something hurtful like, _How would you know?_ But between the two of them, Steve’s never lost himself completely, never been put through what Bucky has. He’d never dream of saying that; he wants to trust it, in fact. “You wanna know what I see?” 

“A 95 year old superhero dressed like an unconvincing female impersonator off the Vegas strip?” Steve attempts, and yelps, “ _ow_ ,” when Bucky nips his finger, hard. 

“I see,” he says, immediately kissing the bite mark better, “the most beautiful woman. She’s got the prettiest blue eyes, even when they’re glaring at me like they are now. She used to have to glare up at me, but now she’s glaring down at me - doesn’t matter what her height, her eyes are gorgeous.” He kisses the back of Steve’s hand, then the wrist. “She’s strong, and brave, even though I could smack her sometimes for taking on too much for too many other people, when I wish she’d take time for herself.”

 _I did, and look how it backfired,_ Steve wants to say. He closes his eyes when Bucky’s lips work up to the tender skin on the inside of his elbow. 

“She’s got beautiful lips that I never wanna stop kissing,” Bucky says between kisses. “She smells good no matter what, even if she’s just fought bad guys in the sewers of New York.”

“That was one time and I smelled like a dump truck.”

“She’s kind and honest,” Bucky says, ignoring that last. “And she’s always been kind and honest, brave and strong no matter what size she is or she wears or what the world throws at her. And she’s always gonna be kind and honest, brave and strong, and the most beautiful person I know. And,” he adds, tone dipping from reverent to cheeky as he catches Steve’s eye, “Ass you could bounce a dime off of, doesn’t matter if she’s wearing skirts or uniform pants.” 

“I bet you get all the girls like that,” Steve says, trying not to warm to Bucky’s flattery. It’s almost impossible to resist. 

“Nah, this is reserved for the only one who’s marriage material,” Bucky says, winking. His lips are stopped by the sleeves of Steve’s dress so he shifts upward and begins kissing up Steve’s neck. With a little sigh, Steve’s head tilts back. 

“You believin’ me yet?” he asks, pressing kiss after kiss to Steve’s throat. “You’re so lovely, Stevie. But it can’t come from me, you’ve gotta believe it. It’s always been who you are, you just gotta reconnect is all.” 

Steve closes his eyes, trying to release tension to the feeling of Bucky’s lips and the warmth of his love. Bucky kisses delicately up his jaw, which still feels too manly, too square, and mouths softly at his lips until Steve parts with a sigh and kisses back.

For a while all they do is kiss slow and lazy, smearing Steve’s pretty lipstick and not giving a damn about it. Bucky holds him like he’s something precious and whispers whenever they have to break for air, sweet things about how pretty Steve is, how he wants to make his wife feel good and right, how he loves him. 

They pull back and just look at each other for a breath of a moment, and Steve’s sure he looks ridiculous, with smeared makeup and clip-on earrings, but Bucky dives back down and with great reverence unbuckles Steve’s pumps, dropping them to the floor, and slides his hands up Steve’s stockinged legs. Involuntarily, Steve gives a little coltish kick, forgetting how ticklish his knees could be. Bucky smiles and kisses him again. 

Steve winds up on his back, the nice dress ends up bunched up around his hips, feeling starved of breath as Bucky kisses and licks along the hems of the stockings and over Steve’s erection straining tight against the little lace panties. Dimly, he thinks that wearing a cincher while getting blown isn’t the brightest idea, but the way Bucky worships every square inch of skin that he can find with fingers and teeth and tongue makes it all worth it. 

He can’t help the way his breath goes high and breathy when Bucky finally, finally swallows him down, nor the way his back arches. He hazards looking down and Bucky’s hair spills onto his stockinged thighs in stark contrast to the beige stockings, the little black snaps of the suspenders, his exposed skin creamy and soft and oh God, oh _God_ , it looks right, he doesn’t feel right not yet, but it’s almost like it could feel like he did back then if he keeps looking - 

He gasps and Bucky pulls off long enough to kiss the head of his cock and say, “That’s my girl, don’t be shy - you’re so good, I’ve got you,” before he takes Steve back down almost all the way to his base, flesh hand reaching up and wrapping around what he can’t fit in his mouth.

After that Steve lasts an embarrassingly short time but it’s okay, because Bucky pets his thighs and his quivering stomach as he shakes and comes. Bucky swallows everything down and strokes his softening flesh with the flat of his tongue over and over until Steve’s almost shaking from overstimulation, and then Bucky releases him. 

“You’re so pretty, Steve,” he says, looking up at Steve’s eyes. His voice is pitched soft and low. “What can I do to make you feel good, sweetheart? You deserve to feel good.” 

The dress is lost to the floor next to the shoes twenty minutes later when Bucky turns him over, gentle and sweet, pulls the panties down, and eats him out slow and hot and deliberate until Steve actually starts crying from it. The cincher lasts another hour but eventually is taken off along with the brassiere, but the stockings stay on when Bucky slips between Steve’s thighs and slides into him, not letting him look away as their bodies rock in tandem, panting “I love you” back and forth into the heated air.

Steve takes what Bucky gives him, comes and comes until he doesn’t think he can any more and at the end of it all feels blissed out and loose and - somehow he’s still resistant to the idea, doesn’t know if it’s really possible - like maybe there’s some soft, pretty part of him that’s reaching out to reconnect with while Bucky’s taking care of him. 

 

The very next afternoon, Bucky surprises Steve by tugging him out of the apartment and downtown, but remains tight-lipped about where he’s taking him. 

When they stop outside of the store, which is done up in modern lines and black and white panels, Steve can only give him a questioning look until Bucky pushes him inside, giving him literally no choice in the matter.

If Steve gets lost in art supply shops, he’s completely gone in the designer makeup store. There are products, powders and creams he’s never even heard of before, but what catches his eye are the shelves upon shelves of little bottles, brightly-colored and glittering under the lights. 

Bucky sidles over to him as he’s picking up and examining every single bottle of a particular brand. Steve likes the silly names they give the colors, a lot of it British slang he’s never heard of, and the nail polishes themselves are so beautiful he can’t decide which he likes best. 

“Anything you want,” Bucky says, and Steve wants to make a joke about famous last words because he can’t actually pick just one out of the ten or twelve he’s eyeing.

Which is how they end up in a conundrum that evening, $240 worth of designer formaldehyde-free nail polish spread out around them on the living room floor, Bucky seated at Steve’s feet and waiting for him to make up his mind.

“I don’t know,” Steve says, looking at the army of little bottles. “You decide.”

“They’re your toes,” Bucky says, frowning a little. Steve looks from the glittery champagne color to the deep navy blue and over the variety of reds and creamy neutrals before pointing to the single pastel, a soft purple orchid shade. 

Bucky paints his nails with a sniper’s precision and then, just to be an asshole, blows on them, tickling the tops of his feet. He nudges Bucky’s thigh with the ball of his foot, careful not to smear the polish, and then looks down, appreciating the whole effect. 

“It’s real pretty,” he says, the ten bright spots of color on his toes like budding flowers. “I - thank you, Buck.” 

Bucky tilts his head up, and Steve is powerless to do anything but bend down and kiss him. “While I’m down here,” he begins, perhaps too casually. “How do you feel about getting married for real?” 

“We can now,” Steve says, half-surprised. It was one of the more jarring things he’d learned after he’d woken up, and he didn’t think it would have ever been an option until Bucky came back, finally looking and smiling at him like he knew him. “I - I think I’d like to. Do you?” 

“Good, because I do want to,” Bucky says, face brightening. He sticks his hand in his pocket and for a second Steve almost falls off the couch, until Bucky pushes a bottle of bright silver glitter polish into his hands. “This’ll have to do until we can get something proper, official -”

Steve turns the bottle over. On the little label stuck on the bottom, the color’s name is _Engagement Ring._ He can’t help but smile, and opens the bottle, swiping a glittering swath of bright silver polish over the nail on his left ring finger. Bucky swipes the bottle back and does the same on his right hand’s fourth finger. 

It’s not him as Bucky’s wife in the thirties, glass pearls and pinchy earrings and oversized slips, but Bucky’s not the same person now as he was then. Neither is Steve. They can’t go back to that. 

Given time and Bucky’s ever-present, tender support, he thinks, looking at his ten purple nails and one silver one, he can grow back into those spaces in himself that always want to be called _she_.

**Author's Note:**

> If anyone is interested, I was thinking Besame Cosmetics and Butter London for the cosmetics and most of the nail polishes, and clothing based off of things on pinupgirlclothing. Steve, you poor soul. You can't live in the 40s forever.


End file.
